A 40-year-old Omaha man arrested this week in an investigation of illegal steroids is not believed to be connected to another case in which four people have been charged.
Anthony Acome was taken into custody Tuesday by federal agents and members of the Douglas County sheriff's office and Papillion and La Vista police departments who had been investigating him for months. He faces two counts of intent to deliver a controlled substance and a weapons count in Douglas County Court.
An attorney for Acome did not return a phone message to The Associated Press for comment Friday.
Authorities said officers found 200 vials of illegal steroids, $15,000 in cash and 27 loaded guns at Acome's house.
Douglas County Chief Deputy Marty Bilek told Omaha television station KMTV that Acome bought ingredients to make the steroids on the Internet.
Omaha police spokesman James Shade said Friday that Acome's case is separate from another in which four people have been charged with possession of illegal steroids with intent to deliver in a ring with ties to China and New York. Omaha residents Christopher Bowers, 45, and Bernard Venditte, 31, and Papillion residents Ryan Bowers, 29, and Jeanine Rowe, 35, were part of an investigation that started in April, according to the Omaha World-Herald.
Stu Dornan, attorney for Rowe, told the AP that Rowe has pleaded not guilty, but he would comment further Friday. Attorneys for the other three did not immediately return phones messages to the AP.
Omaha Police Sgt. Dave Bianchi told the Omaha World-Herald the four received thousands of vials of illegal steroids during a months-long investigation and that their job was to repackage and mail the vials to online buyers.
Raw hormones from China were mailed to the drug operation's leader in New York, Bianchi said.
The sergeant said the ringleader turned it into an injectable solution and then bottled, labeled and shipped the toxic product to the Omaha and Papillion home addresses of those arrested.
The anabolic steroids had labels from a fake laboratory, Omaha narcotics Detective Greg Hamill said. The doses were up to 100 times higher than those used to treat medical conditions and were "ridiculously toxic," Hamill said.
Steroid use can damage the liver and may cause other serious long-term health consequences in men, women and children.